Innovation

WWEMA’s members are constantly innovating to improve their products, to design new technologies to meet emerging environmental challenges, and to improve efficiency and cost-competitiveness. WWEMA fully supports these efforts and engages with a variety of industry stakeholders to eliminate barriers and unnecessary costs associated with acceptance and use of our members’ products. We educate and advocate for innovation on behalf of our members to legislators, regulators, and state and local decision-makers. Our work in innovation is not just confined to technology but rather creating revolutionary innovation across many areas including technology, funding, and our engagement in the water industry and beyond.

WWEMA:

• Supports the Water Environment Federation’s Leaders Innovation Forum for Technology (LIFT) program to promote adoption of innovative technologies and practices.
• Sits on the Science Advisory Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Design of Risk-Reducing, Innovative-implementable Small-system Knowledge (DeRISK) Center that was formed in 2014 to identify, develop, demonstrate and facilitate widespread acceptance and applicability of novel and innovative technologies and approaches to measure or treat groups of microbiological or chemical contaminants, or their precursors.
• Supports EPA’s Environmental Technology Innovation Cluster program with a number of members participating in clusters around the country.
• Contributes to EPA’s Water Innovation and Technology Blueprint and related technology initiatives.
• In March 2013, co-hosted with the U.S. Water Alliance an Innovating for Water’s Future roundtable, bringing together industry leaders to discuss how to eliminate the barriers to the development and adoption of new technologies within the water industry.
• Co-chaired a technical session at the American Water Works Association ACE13, ACE14, and ACE15 conventions on Overcoming Barriers to Innovative Technology.